A Wounded Heart
by Abril Caballero
Summary: About Lisa's thoughts before leave the Earth...before leave her love. ONE SHOT


I don't own Robotech & Macross. This fic was made just for fun, please read and review!

Thanks to GPPR my beta and translator and to AV, Sary, Mihl, Arjuy, Carla...well All of you :)

A wounded Heart

The heavy door of the command bridge closed behind the woman's back. She felt a strange beat within her chest, a pain she had never experimented before. She walked without haste through the dimly illuminated corridors and saluted those who greeted her. She sighed unconsciously knowing it was probably the last time she walked that way. Those quiet corridors had been silent witnesses of each day at work for years.

"To leave the Earth," she thought dizzily, feeling the same way she had felt earlier, when she received her orders from Captain Gloval. "To leave the Earth... Claudia... My friends... My whole life... Rick," she sighed wanting to cry, wishing she could let go the tears without caring that someone saw her. "Rick, what would life mean to me if you are so far."

She took the elevator and heard it humming smoothly as it lowered. She wondered how different things would have been if Karl had never left. "I probably would be married and with children by now. And you, Rick, silly, you would just be the unbearable friend of Roy." The door of the elevator opened and she walked out of it with her eyes focused on the floor.

A cold winter breeze messed up her hair while she advanced. She remembered how she had given all her life to the Navy, as many others in the Hayes family before her. Now, in spite of her new appointment as an Admiral of the fleet, she walked like a living dead, without a destiny.

Her mind was an eddy of thoughts and her heart was full of pain. Nothing mattered. She had finally let go of the mask of a cold woman and admitted the hurt in her soul. A hurt so deep that it seemed it would take her breath away.

She journeyed through side streets. Khyron's attack on Christmas Day had left all new Macross citizens fearful. "What do I do now? Pick up my things, of course, " she told herself. "Claudia will be happy that I accepted the mission, and that it will take me away from Rick... Rick, if I only could stop thinking about you... Why does it hurt so much?"

"What am I going to take with me?" she wondered trying to focus on something useful. She was going to the other end of the Galaxy. She surely would not need anything else than her uniforms and her pajamas, maybe some towels. "Hmmm, how much Shampoo should I take? Oh! What silly thoughts! For sure it is the fatigue and the emotion... Calm down, Lisa, or you will end up with a panic attack."

She sighed trying to fix her hair but it was impossible with so much wind. Her feet felt heavy and at the same time she seemed not to be in control of them. She did not care where they were taking her, because she knew that ever since she left the bridge that evening, she was moving farther and farther away from Rick. "Even so, my love... I will miss you so much... How am I going to be able to live without seeing you? I don't even have a picture of you to calm my anxiety and to keep my love for you alive while I am far. Come on, Lisa, how can you be thinking of taking a picture of Rick to space... That's crazy. You are more masochist than you seem," she scolded herself and allowed a smooth but calm smile.

She sighed again. "Tomorrow by this time I will be part of your past. I have always asked myself what did you ever feel for me, Rick? What would it have been of us if we were the only survivors of the last Robotech battle years ago? Sure that would have been the end of the human race, because in spite of everything, you would still be crying about little silly Minmei. Worse still, if you and I had worked things up, perhaps when we made love you would have remembered her and even called me by her name, 'Minmei! Minmei!'."

"How much I want that you didn't exist, little pop star! But I shouldn't I blame you... I am just so unlucky with men. I can't blame you for being adorable. And you came into the life of that irreverent flyboy before me. That man who completely melted each protective layer I had surrounded my heart in after Karl died... God! Why did you give me to drink from the glass of Love? Why did you put poison in mine and only mine? Perhaps... Tell me, dear Lord? Did he ever feel something for me, small as it would be? If he ever felt just a little more than friendship for me... A little more than what someone feels for a person who hears him speak nonstop about his adored girlfriend. Could that also be love? To hear the man you love and give him advice even though he is telling you what feels for another woman?"

When Lisa realized where she was, she wanted to back down, to run. How had she arrived just in front of Rick's house! For sure he was inside with Minmei, embracing her and declaring his eternal love to her. And with that, her thoughts drifted away. "Rick, will you remember me when me when I'm gone?" She hadn't finished asking herself the question when the door opened and she saw him in his uniform, looking at her with a strange expression, almost overwhelmed. "Oh! I look so bad?" she wondered trying to contain the tears that had already crowded her eyes. "Why is Rick looking at me that way? What am I doing here?"

"Lisa!" she heard him say with in that special and unforgettable voice. "I mean... Captain Hayes!" he corrected.

"Rick... I came to say good-bye," Lisa said as she watched Minmei's small head appear next to Rick's shoulder. Her blue eyes watched the Admiral with curiosity. "Wow... I was not mistaken, this is the end, time to face reality. Rick loves Minmei and the best thing that could happen to me was to be assigned to the SDF-2... This is your last opportunity, Lisa, be honest to yourself and finish telling whatever you feel for him. Tomorrow morning you will be no longer here and he will not witness your tears," she thought.

"I have been assigned to a new Mission," Lisa said, as if she was programmed to speak. She told him about her assignment, feeling pain in her heart. She could not control the tremor in her voice and could not think about the best way for declaring her feelings for him... Until it was said... Without knowing how, Lisa simply heard herself saying: "I've always loved you and I always will. Forgive me Minmei, but I had to tell him, because perhaps I'll never return."

"Oh Rick, don't look at me that way! I have a heart and it loves you so much that it's not even mine anymore

It completely belongs to you." Lisa told herself, still surprised by her own actions.

Rick wanted to speak, he even tried to get closer to her, but his own words seemed to be choking him.

Full of pain, Lisa said good bye to him, to both, with a solemn military greeting and then she ran. She could cry now and she did, with all her strength, feeling that with each step a piece of her heart crumbled. She was submerged in an almost unconscious dream. She remembered those old romantic films, where the fleeing heroin was followed by her hero. This was real life, however, and she was simply Lisa Hayes, Rick would not come for her. "Damn life! Damn destiny! Why does it hurt me so much?... Oh! God, stop the pain, please! My love, why didn't you come for me? Why didn't you stop me? Rick, why couldn't you love me as I learned to love you? I gave so much to you... Why didn't you see it? Why didn't I tell you? Why must I bear the sentence of being alone?

Rick's image faded from her mind, blurred by the wind and dimmed by her weeping. His body, that she had felt against hers so briefly, remained behind; as did his lips, that she had barely kissed. It was too late now. How would she erase his name from her lips and her mind? How could she? It had been engraved onto her soul by fire.

A noise as loud as a thunderclap broke the air and an unbearable heat wave surrounded her. She felt weak and her moist tears mixed with the dust of the sudden cloud of destruction. "No! I don't want to forget you!" She stumbled and something struck her head... Something was wrong... Her body did not respond. "What is this? She lay on the hard cement road and listened a multitude of laments and moans. "A new attack! I cannot die... I have a mission... Rick," she whispered. "But if I die, it will be remembering you, my love..." A vacuum came in her mind as it erased the image of Rick and the last shining smile that he had given her, a a long time ago. Suddenly there was nothing in her mind, only darkness and silence.


End file.
